Dwarven Bracers

Hello!

I want to present you my dwarven leather breacers. I made them as a part of an armour of my dwarven costume which I made for this larp battle inspired by Hobbit.

So..to make this beautiful part of armor you will need:

• leather (mine was thick about 4mm)
• knife
• thread and needle, rivets
• some tools
• paper and pencil
• ruler

First I wanted to make Gimli's bracers, than I thought about Thorin Oakenshield's. But then I said "Hey, why don't you try to make your own ?" So I decided to think about whole new pattern.

Because leather is quite expensive material, you should make more sketches and transfer it to the leather once you're completely satisfied with it.

So measure your arm and take a pencil and let's do some sketching!

Now just draw a future shape of your bracers on the leather and cut it. There isn't really much to say :)

Now we get to the harder part - decorating.

First, draw a pattern on your bracers. After that we will push it or cut to it.

In order to make it, you need to soften the leather. Just put it in the water until it's completely wet.

Then start to push some hard thing into it.

After you are done just let it dry (without heating it! Heat would destroy the leather)

You can also dye and wax you bracers.

Dying will change your bracelet's color.

Wax will make the leather harder and darker and will also protect it.

Grease will protect them from water and from getting old and worn off.

I chose to dye it with brown color. You can use special paints for leather or if you don't want to buy them, just use an alcohol marker. I also want to lubricate them, but I will do it before the battle :)

Now it is finally the time to join all the parts together (as you could see on previous pictures, I did it earlier, but just because I'm impatient and I didn't wanted to paint them first, but luckily I changed my mind :) ) !

I sewed a hand part to the arm part and then attached a stripe of leather for holding it on palm.

Then I added fastening.

I cut stripe of leather and insert it into a buckle. Then I glue it on the bracer, so it would be easier to sew it later. You can use rivets as well! After that I added a stripe of leather on the opposite side of bracer.

And if you got all the way down here, that means you are done! :)

I really hope you like this instructable and that it was helpful. It was my first time when I worked with leather, so I'll be glad for comments and advises, what should I do better next time! :)